Post by eunomiczenith on Aug 16, 2016 23:49:55 GMT
Hello Sburban community. Once again it is me, eunomicZenith, the native Guide of Time, writing yet another guide, about yet another aspect because it's my job description (sorta). This time I'm tackling Dust, the aspect I had the rotten luck to be a Knight of in my fifth session. But honestly, a lot of people could benefit from it, personality-wise. That doesn't make it suck any less as a personal experience.
SECTION 1: What is Dust?
If you, too, have rolled Dust, then you'll want to learn its themes as soon as possible so you can move from sucking at Dust more than a vacuum cleaner to surviving and hopefully kicking some ass while you're at it. For those who want to do that, here are Dust's core themes. Good luck.
1) Humbleness: This entire aspect is a big middle fingers to all the players who think they're oh so great. If you stomp on others or just have an ego the size of Jupiter, you can say hi to Dust, aka the aspect that will shoot it down or shoot YOU down, period. You'll learn to stop thinking of yourself as special or above others or whatever. You'll be dragged through the mud and the dust and you'll come out with the realization that you're ultimately average. You'll learn to be humble. There is no other way out.
2) Scarcity: If you're a Dust player, there is two ways you could be by the time you hit endgame. Option A: Dead. Knife's Edge exists. B: A hobo with several-times-patched clothes, very little cash or grist to speak of, scavenging for whatever you can find to make things out of. You'll learn to do with whatever you already happen to have. You can kiss the notion of being rich goodbye. You'll also quickly learn that your Transmutancy is hell deep in the negatives, which makes your alchemized items pretty freaking bad. Don't try to circumvent this by having others alchemize stuff for you, either. Your aspect does not like alchemy, at all.
SECTION 2: Dust Abilities: Use Sparingly, be Kickass
Contrary to Coins, which is the aspect of abundance and expects you to share, Dust is the aspect of scarcity, so it expects you to make the best out of the smallest quantities. That extends to your abilities too! The big quirk of Dust is exactly this: the more rarely you use your abilities, the more they hit like a truck. If you use them too often, they weaken to the point where you're really wasting your pluck.
For example, let's take [Dirtiest Shrapnel], one of Dust's direct offense abilities. It flings dust, small pieces of dirt, debris, trash and whatever else at enemies. But how much and, most importantly, how HARD, is determined by when was the last time you used it. One hour ago? You'll throw two (2) dust rabbits at a speed approximately that of my grandma running. One month? All the dirt and debris in the area - including stuff you'd need heavy machinery to lift - will fling itself at the enemy at nearly mach 1. It can get so bullshit powerful you have no idea, the issue is that it takes REALLY long periods of time spent not using it to achieve that.
Dust also happens to be, due to its inherent nature, the aspect with the lowest number of abilities. It's less than Hope, at only 52.
Two very important abilities from Dust are the ones that buff your armor and weapon using that same criterion. Thanks to [Linothorax], the longer you've been wearing that old T-shirt with the permanently stained armpits, the more defense it racks up, to the point where it becomes bulletproof and then after some months it's basically endgame armor in disguise. [Old But Trusty] does the same for weapons: if you've been wielding that basic clawhammer for a few months straight, it automagically becomes capable of denting titanium armor as if it was a thin gold foil. Yes, it's that ridiculously awesome.
NOTE: Of course, if your shirt/weapon breaks, you'll have to repair it by hand. This is why you will see Dust players wearing really ratty clothes that have been patched up multiple times to the point it's getting all Ship of Theseus. Don't worry, Sburb still counts it as the original shirt as long as there was some solid solution of continuity. In either case, I recommend getting sturdy stuff early on to avoid having your shirt getting destroyed, for instance. If you want to be a good Dust player, though, you'll have to do it without using alchemy. Remember, Dust hates the guts out of alchemy and everything alchemized.
In case it ever needed them, Dust also has a couple OHKO attacks. [Α War Of One Bullet] is basically a dusty projectile that kills whatever it touches as long as its health is below X, where X rises the longer you haven't been using it. Wait long enough and you can OHKO an Acheron from full health. [Dust to Dust] works just the same, in practice, except it's meant to turn the enemy into dust. It can also be used on inanimate objects, and in that case it's much cheaper.
Other abilities you should know about:
[You Are Dust] is a humbling psybuff that makes you stop thinking of yourself as hot shit. Good to cast on yourself (the Dust player), your Blood player who is acting insane in the face of danger, your Megalovaniac player, your jackass, etcetera. It's THE cold boot therapy to knock down egos a peg. It's not nice, but it's very effective.
NOTE: Don't cast it on Coins players. It'll either earn a drastic reaction - in some cases even a Berserk Trigger - or just negatively impact their ARC.
[Swiss Army Anything] is a scry ability that makes you get ideas for how you can creatively use stuff. You can use this for crafting, for combat, for anything.
[Fasting] lets you put a cooldown of X time on any of your abilities, and in turn you gain a stat boost. It's a good self control tool if you're tempted to use stuff too often. (Dust abilities don't have cooldowns because they don't need to, basically.)
WARNING: Don't overdo it, you might need your abilities to SURVIVE, you know, and if they're all on cooldown or too weak, you're defenseless. Always keep something big you can use to save your skin.
[Bare Necessities] erases/turns into dust what is not needed, including stuff like memories and thoughts. Very useful ability you can use in a number of ways.
[Do Without] is basically [Fasting] used on an enemy, minus the boost: it puts an ability on cooldown, meaning you get rid of it for a while. The longer you haven't used [Do Without], the longer the cooldown it slaps on that ability is. Great tool to neutralize some really pesky stuff some enemies have.
[Dust Devil] creates dust tornadoes. That's it, it's one of the few offensive direct aspect manifestation abilities Dust gets.
[Real Value] is a psybuff that makes you value more what you have. Depending on what you use it for, it can make you value your wealth, items, your friendships, your current life, etcetera. It's just awesome and flexible (like many Dust abilities), and perfect to fix spoiled brats who never think they have enough, when they really should be glad for what they do have. It even synergizes well with Coins when used on stuff like "your body" or "your personality" etcetera. It raises their self-esteem.
WARNING: Dust players (and people who are overly infused with this ability) tend to be pretty stingy. They don't like sharing, they don't like spending, and they can be sometimes be found muttering "my precioussss" caressing a plastic ring they tore off a bottle. This is annoying enough, but then the issue becomes a lot bigger when they start not wanting to buy fraymotifs and being crazy about saving EVERYTHING up. They'll keep healing items in their inventory FOREVER, always thinking they need "a bigger emergency". They often end up not using them, logically. Just, try to avoid that kind of behaviour. It can really kill you if you're too stingy to heal yourself at 5% HP when "it could be worse".
THE DUST BERSERK TRIGGER:
When Dust players go apeshit bananas - generally due to having their aspect's core themes be infringed on too badly - they always cast the same thing, since it's the aspect of being cheap: [Cities in Dust]. It's basically the knockoff version of whatever the Sand BT is: it slowly but inevitably reduces the entire area to dust, and it has a very big AOE. You can easily recognize it when they get that sad, humble look in their face, eyes start glowing and they start levitating. You can't hug them nor kick them in the head because if you get too close you'll just get turned to dust. The effect spreads relatively slowly, though, so it's fairly easy to run away if you understand what's coming.
SECTION 3: Denizens
Haruman: This giant monkey-headed snake with a towering hindu crown thing made out of whatever default dirt type the Land has (should it exist) who expects devotion to the (amoral) Skaian ideal.
Penia: A completely regular run-of-the-mill snakeizen who will consistently beg for your stuff and will steal anything not nailed down and some things that are if they're too close to her denizen palace and will not try to make denizen deal prices reasonable at all.
That is all.
Good luck, and may the Dust be with you.
SECTION 1: What is Dust?
If you, too, have rolled Dust, then you'll want to learn its themes as soon as possible so you can move from sucking at Dust more than a vacuum cleaner to surviving and hopefully kicking some ass while you're at it. For those who want to do that, here are Dust's core themes. Good luck.
1) Humbleness: This entire aspect is a big middle fingers to all the players who think they're oh so great. If you stomp on others or just have an ego the size of Jupiter, you can say hi to Dust, aka the aspect that will shoot it down or shoot YOU down, period. You'll learn to stop thinking of yourself as special or above others or whatever. You'll be dragged through the mud and the dust and you'll come out with the realization that you're ultimately average. You'll learn to be humble. There is no other way out.
2) Scarcity: If you're a Dust player, there is two ways you could be by the time you hit endgame. Option A: Dead. Knife's Edge exists. B: A hobo with several-times-patched clothes, very little cash or grist to speak of, scavenging for whatever you can find to make things out of. You'll learn to do with whatever you already happen to have. You can kiss the notion of being rich goodbye. You'll also quickly learn that your Transmutancy is hell deep in the negatives, which makes your alchemized items pretty freaking bad. Don't try to circumvent this by having others alchemize stuff for you, either. Your aspect does not like alchemy, at all.
SECTION 2: Dust Abilities: Use Sparingly, be Kickass
Contrary to Coins, which is the aspect of abundance and expects you to share, Dust is the aspect of scarcity, so it expects you to make the best out of the smallest quantities. That extends to your abilities too! The big quirk of Dust is exactly this: the more rarely you use your abilities, the more they hit like a truck. If you use them too often, they weaken to the point where you're really wasting your pluck.
For example, let's take [Dirtiest Shrapnel], one of Dust's direct offense abilities. It flings dust, small pieces of dirt, debris, trash and whatever else at enemies. But how much and, most importantly, how HARD, is determined by when was the last time you used it. One hour ago? You'll throw two (2) dust rabbits at a speed approximately that of my grandma running. One month? All the dirt and debris in the area - including stuff you'd need heavy machinery to lift - will fling itself at the enemy at nearly mach 1. It can get so bullshit powerful you have no idea, the issue is that it takes REALLY long periods of time spent not using it to achieve that.
Dust also happens to be, due to its inherent nature, the aspect with the lowest number of abilities. It's less than Hope, at only 52.
Two very important abilities from Dust are the ones that buff your armor and weapon using that same criterion. Thanks to [Linothorax], the longer you've been wearing that old T-shirt with the permanently stained armpits, the more defense it racks up, to the point where it becomes bulletproof and then after some months it's basically endgame armor in disguise. [Old But Trusty] does the same for weapons: if you've been wielding that basic clawhammer for a few months straight, it automagically becomes capable of denting titanium armor as if it was a thin gold foil. Yes, it's that ridiculously awesome.
NOTE: Of course, if your shirt/weapon breaks, you'll have to repair it by hand. This is why you will see Dust players wearing really ratty clothes that have been patched up multiple times to the point it's getting all Ship of Theseus. Don't worry, Sburb still counts it as the original shirt as long as there was some solid solution of continuity. In either case, I recommend getting sturdy stuff early on to avoid having your shirt getting destroyed, for instance. If you want to be a good Dust player, though, you'll have to do it without using alchemy. Remember, Dust hates the guts out of alchemy and everything alchemized.
In case it ever needed them, Dust also has a couple OHKO attacks. [Α War Of One Bullet] is basically a dusty projectile that kills whatever it touches as long as its health is below X, where X rises the longer you haven't been using it. Wait long enough and you can OHKO an Acheron from full health. [Dust to Dust] works just the same, in practice, except it's meant to turn the enemy into dust. It can also be used on inanimate objects, and in that case it's much cheaper.
Other abilities you should know about:
[You Are Dust] is a humbling psybuff that makes you stop thinking of yourself as hot shit. Good to cast on yourself (the Dust player), your Blood player who is acting insane in the face of danger, your Megalovaniac player, your jackass, etcetera. It's THE cold boot therapy to knock down egos a peg. It's not nice, but it's very effective.
NOTE: Don't cast it on Coins players. It'll either earn a drastic reaction - in some cases even a Berserk Trigger - or just negatively impact their ARC.
[Swiss Army Anything] is a scry ability that makes you get ideas for how you can creatively use stuff. You can use this for crafting, for combat, for anything.
[Fasting] lets you put a cooldown of X time on any of your abilities, and in turn you gain a stat boost. It's a good self control tool if you're tempted to use stuff too often. (Dust abilities don't have cooldowns because they don't need to, basically.)
WARNING: Don't overdo it, you might need your abilities to SURVIVE, you know, and if they're all on cooldown or too weak, you're defenseless. Always keep something big you can use to save your skin.
[Bare Necessities] erases/turns into dust what is not needed, including stuff like memories and thoughts. Very useful ability you can use in a number of ways.
[Do Without] is basically [Fasting] used on an enemy, minus the boost: it puts an ability on cooldown, meaning you get rid of it for a while. The longer you haven't used [Do Without], the longer the cooldown it slaps on that ability is. Great tool to neutralize some really pesky stuff some enemies have.
[Dust Devil] creates dust tornadoes. That's it, it's one of the few offensive direct aspect manifestation abilities Dust gets.
[Real Value] is a psybuff that makes you value more what you have. Depending on what you use it for, it can make you value your wealth, items, your friendships, your current life, etcetera. It's just awesome and flexible (like many Dust abilities), and perfect to fix spoiled brats who never think they have enough, when they really should be glad for what they do have. It even synergizes well with Coins when used on stuff like "your body" or "your personality" etcetera. It raises their self-esteem.
WARNING: Dust players (and people who are overly infused with this ability) tend to be pretty stingy. They don't like sharing, they don't like spending, and they can be sometimes be found muttering "my precioussss" caressing a plastic ring they tore off a bottle. This is annoying enough, but then the issue becomes a lot bigger when they start not wanting to buy fraymotifs and being crazy about saving EVERYTHING up. They'll keep healing items in their inventory FOREVER, always thinking they need "a bigger emergency". They often end up not using them, logically. Just, try to avoid that kind of behaviour. It can really kill you if you're too stingy to heal yourself at 5% HP when "it could be worse".
THE DUST BERSERK TRIGGER:
When Dust players go apeshit bananas - generally due to having their aspect's core themes be infringed on too badly - they always cast the same thing, since it's the aspect of being cheap: [Cities in Dust]. It's basically the knockoff version of whatever the Sand BT is: it slowly but inevitably reduces the entire area to dust, and it has a very big AOE. You can easily recognize it when they get that sad, humble look in their face, eyes start glowing and they start levitating. You can't hug them nor kick them in the head because if you get too close you'll just get turned to dust. The effect spreads relatively slowly, though, so it's fairly easy to run away if you understand what's coming.
SECTION 3: Denizens
Haruman: This giant monkey-headed snake with a towering hindu crown thing made out of whatever default dirt type the Land has (should it exist) who expects devotion to the (amoral) Skaian ideal.
Penia: A completely regular run-of-the-mill snakeizen who will consistently beg for your stuff and will steal anything not nailed down and some things that are if they're too close to her denizen palace and will not try to make denizen deal prices reasonable at all.
That is all.
Good luck, and may the Dust be with you.